Press Forward board of directors member Rachel Pulfer refused to resist persecution of Julian Assange, as JHR executive director
Photo Credit: (NBC News/Google Images)
Written by: Aidan Jonah
Press Forward, an alliance of independent media publishers, was announced on December 8, 2020. Many important figures make up the operating team, including Journalists for Human Rights Executive Director Rachel Pulfer.
Pulfer is a well-known figure in the industry, who previously was a contributor at the Canadian Business Magazine and a Contributing Editor at Azure, a magazine focused on contemporary architecture and design. In 2010, she joined Journalists for Human Rights as International Programs Director, which came with significant influence in the organization. JHR describes its role as “working to empower journalists to cover human rights stories ‘objectively’ and effectively.”
That same year Wikileaks founder Julian Assange came to the forefront of world affairs. On November 28, 2010, Wikileaks released the Iraq War Logs, which contain 250 000 classified cables exposing the devastating extent of American war crimes in the region. The full weight of the Western security intelligence agencies soon came crashing down on Assange and the outlet. The day of the leak, Wikileaks suffered a DDoS attack. Multiple sites which helped in visualizing and/or hosting content of the leaks are soon pressured into cutting ties with Wikileaks, while within nine days, Visa, Mastercard and Paypal prevent users from making payments or donations to the outlet.
In a case where an outlet, Wikileaks, has just exposed massive human rights violations on the part of multiple western powers, surely JHR, would come rushing to Assange’s defence? That never came to pass.
Instead, the organization which claims to care dearly about human rights, stood silent against a coordinated campaign to crush Wikileaks. Nary a tweet, nor a Facebook post, not even a public statement. This soon begins to turn into a pattern.
In October 2011, Pulfer is named Executive Director, after JHR co-founder Ben Peterson had stepped down.
In August 2012, Assange is forced to seek asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, located in the United Kingdom. Days after attaining asylum, Assange slammed the campaign to destroy Wikileaks, and urged for an end to attacks against him. This campaign includes attempts by the American government to prosecute Assange for leaks which embarrassed the military and federal government.
For years Assange is left in limbo, only escaping a farcical prosecution due to the bravery of leftist Ecuadorian Rafael Correa. Under Pulfer’s leadership, JHR continued its’ tradition of cowardly silence for years.
In February 2016, the Guardian reported that “The UN working group on arbitrary detention says Assange is being ‘arbitrarily detained’, and calls on authorities to end his ‘deprivation of liberty’.” By April 2017, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions had revealed that prosecuting Assange was a key priority for the Trump administration. A month later, all rape charges against Assange were dropped by Swedish prosecutors. Yet, due to the threat of facing farcical espionage charges in America, Assange chose to stay in the Ecuadorian embassy.
That month, a key moment in Ecuadorian politics would change everything for Assange. Former Vice-President to Correa, Lenin Moreno, became the new president of Ecuador after Correa did not seek another term in office. An all out American campaign to pressure Moreno is launched, and he would soon crack under the slightest pressure.
In March 2018, Assange’s internet is shut off by the Ecuadorian government, which complained that Assange was interfering in other states affairs. That October, Assange slammed Moreno’s government for violating his fundamental rights and freedoms, and announced a lawsuit against Ecuador’s foreign minister, José Valencia.
A month later, US court documents reveal secret espionage charges have been laid against Assange. Yet for the time being, it seemed as if little would change.
This premonition was false. On April 11, 2019, the Ecuadorian government revoked Assange’s political asylum. Hours later, Assange was arrested by UK police, and detained at Belmarsh prison.
Assange is now facing an extradition trial, in which he seeks to avoid being forced to face trial in the United States on multiple charges of espionage. Most journalists have been barred from attending the hearing, with the British state seeking to keep the trial as secret as possible. Very few, bar journalists such as Kevin Gosztola and Richard Medhurst, have even attempted to cover the trial.
In the ten years that Rachel Pulfer has been at JHR, in the leadership role for nine years, the organization has tweeted, posted on Facebook or made a public statement about Wikileaks and Assange zero times. Cowardice is the clearest way put it.
JHR receives extensive funding from the Canadian International Development Agency, the National Endowment for Democracy, the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office and many more embassies of Western countries. The Canadian government has provided millions in funding alone in recent years.
JHR has run foreign affairs focused news partnerships CTV and Global News while the Toronto Star and CBC have sponsored its events.
JHR’s list of international trainers includes CTV news host Lisa LaFlamme, former Toronto Star editor Michael Cooke and former Globe and Mail editor John Stackhouse.
In October 2018, JHR held a fundraising event which served as propaganda for the Canadian government, titled “Find Out How Canada is Back!” Minister of International Development Marie-Claude Bibeau was the guest speaker for the event. Yves Engler explained the propagandistic nature of the event:
“The minister almost certainly chose not to discuss her government’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia, backing for brutal mining companies, NATO deployments, antagonism towards Palestinian rights, efforts to topple the Venezuelan government, promotion of military spending, etc. Rather than reflect the thrust of this country’s foreign policy the “Canada is Back” theme is a sop to a government that’s provided JHR with millions of dollars.”
JHR does not challenge western imperialism in the slightest. Rather it serves as a tool used to lecture other countries on their misdeeds, true or not.
Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, a socialist, anti-imperialist news site founded in 2019. He has written about Canadian imperialism, federal politics, and left-wing resistance to colonialism across the world. He is a second-year Bachelor of Journalism student at Ryerson University, who was the Head of Communications and Community Engagement for Etobicoke North NDP Candidate Naiima Farah in the 2019 Federal Election.
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